QUOTE (Fatum @ Sep 25 2012, 05:07 PM)

Quite a bit less damage compensated by increased range that you don't need in most shadowrunning situations.
Quit a bit less damage? Compared to what?
Sniper rifles?
Sniper rifles have about 2P -2AP over battle rifles and lack the burst fire option.
Shotguns?
While the shotgun is superior at close ranges (as it should be) due to its multi-target capabilities that superiority quickly drops off with distance making the comparison a moot point since the weapons are designed for different roles.
Sport rifles?
Flat out worse than battle rifles.
Assault rifles?
Well, the issue of moving from longarms to automatics weapon group aside. The assault rifle group's sole advantage over the battle rifle is its full auto mode and a slight advantage in ammo capacity. Battle rifles have the higher innate damage code as well as longer range. The problem for assault rifles is that battle rifles are already BF. That means is a small modification (1 slot, 300 nuyen) to modifier a battle rifle to accept FA firing. At that point, the battle rifle is superior to the assault rifle.
No, the problem with battle rifles is they make assault rifles redundant and obsolete. The single largest reason that we do not equip the majority of armed forces with battle rifle type weapons over assault rifles just happens to be a reason that is not modeled in Shadowrun. Weight. In fact, if you're taking automatics just for the assault rifle and have no plans to use SMGs or machine pistols you're much better off swapping all the points from automatics to longarms and taking that 1 mod slot 300 nuyen tax to mod a battle rifle for full auto. In return you gain access (read skill) to the best close range weapons and access to the longest range non-heavy weapons in the game.
QUOTE (Fatum @ Sep 25 2012, 05:07 PM)

Recoil can be compensated with RC. Can the "-2 modificator due to recoil" be? Is the first shot in a turn affected? How are those fluff problems?
You're still wrapped up on the fluff problem with the rule. The mechanic parts of it are extremely clear. "High-power rounds inflict a -2 dice pool penalty when fired due to excess recoil." Since Fire Weapon and Fire Automatic Weapon are actions that one takes it's fairly obvious this penalty applies when you make an attack action with the weapon.
I'm going to remove the fluff from the rule. "High-power rounds inflict a -2 dice pool penalty when fired." Recoil controversy eliminated! I'm also going to add some words which make recoil compensation apply. "High-power rounds inflict a -2 dice pool penalty (neutralized by recoil compensation) when fired."
QUOTE (Fatum @ Sep 25 2012, 05:07 PM)

It'd serve you well to base your opinions on facts and not suspicions. If you actually read the book, you'll notice that those weapons destroy everything in the epicenter and do minuscule 30P to everything beyond it. Do you really think that such granularity reflects the reality of a blast?
That falls about in line from what I would expect from the general design of a thor shot weapon. I think people have a rather unrealistic representation of what a thor shot would do due to poor research and writing on the part of science fiction writers. A thor shot style weapon is a kinetic weapon and not an explosive weapon. The best real world example of what a thor shot would do is to take a bunker buster bomb and remove the explosive ordinance from it.
Now a thor shot will destroy a building, but not by flattening it underneath it. It's going to rip through the building down through the foundation destroying huge amounts of structure support as well as foundational support. The odds are that after such significant damage the building will collapse under its own weight. A lot of the area damage is probably being causes by fragmentation of the object hit, superheated air plasma, heat from air friction of the projectile, and perhaps even some damage based on the supersonic speed.